ROCKFORD — Expect at least 70 abandoned homes to get torn down next year, as the City Council plans its most significant push to reduce the stock of rotting and decrepit structures around town.

While they have yet to vote, aldermen have reached a general consensus to more than triple the annual budget for demolishing neighborhood eyesores, while staffers look for ways to capture more funding.

The targets for demolition would be ranked by inspectors, using the same priorities used to make the city’s annual list for emergency tear downs. Inspectors rank homes by how safe the structure is, how long they’ve been abandoned, if there are open or gaping holes, if they’re categorized by police as a hotbed for drugs or crime, proximity to schools and the number of complaints garnered.

These won’t be newly foreclosed homes that have been empty for a year or two, said Ald. Karen Elyea, D-11.

“The houses I’m thinking of have been empty for years and have holes in the roofs and are full of black mold and feces,” Elyea said. “In my ward and in older parts of town we have houses that have needed to be demolished for 10 years.”

Tears downs cost taxpayers an average of $10,000 per home. Some cost more or less, depending on the size of the property and if lead paint or asbestos needs to be removed.

The council sets aside $200,000 each year in federal funds for tear downs. Elyea has proposed the city spend another $500,000 from the city’s garbage and sanitation reserves on demolitions.

The relatively new City Council is in the midst of preparing next year’s $129 million spending plan. And with seven of the 14 aldermen planning their first annual budget, at least one priority is clear. In the way some past councils and neighboring village boards have talked about creating jobs, luring development or public safety, all budget talks at Rockford’s city hall seem to eventually come back to home demolitions.

Demolitions played a role in the city’s latest contract negotiations with its garbage collector — the company will now haul the equivalent of 80 homes worth of debris each year for free. It’s at the forefront of debate over how to spend the city’s annual Community Development Block Grant funding and where to prioritize limited money for neighborhood programs.

Aldermen gave the go-ahead last week for staff to pursue a $250,000 grant from the Illinois Housing Development Authority. If Rockford gets it, the city could take down more homes next year than it has in the five previous years combined.

Page 2 of 2 - “I’d like to see us get to $1 million,” Elyea said.

In 2004, the city commissioned a study to take stock of all its houses and housing units. The study labeled 1,978 as approaching unsound, unsafe or barely usable and recommended a goal of demolishing 1,000 units in the next five years. It’s a goal that the city never attempted or came close to reaching.

Rockford officials haven’t taken a comprehensive look at state of housing in the city since, and can’t say how many more structures have fallen into disrepair.

The finance committee will pick up Elyea’s proposal on Monday to set aside $500,000 next year for demolitions. The money would come from a $5 million surplus the city has built from residents’ garbage, street sweeping and forestry bills.

The finance committee will put together a plan next week for how to spend that surplus.

Ald. Jamie Getchius, R-2, wants to keep about $2 million in reserves for emergency clean up in the case of a disaster.

With $500,000 going toward demolitions, the other $2.5 million could be used to hire five new police officers and pay down any budget shortcomings over the next two years without raising the property tax levy, Getchius said.

“There’s strong support for refunding the surplus in some way back to the tax payers,” he said. “By using it to close that budget deficit we can keep the property tax levy flat this year, and I don’t want it to go up next year. We can use the money as a Band-Aid for (the 2015) budget and start looking at actually lowering the tax levy.”